The Problems of Urbanization free essay sample

PROBLEMS OF URBANIZATION Urbanization, or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. Urbanization is also defined by the United Nations as movement of people from rural to urban areas with population growth equating to urban migration. The United Nations projected that half of the worlds population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008 Urbanization is closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization. Urbanization can describe a specific condition at a set time, i. e. he proportion of total population or area in cities or towns, or the term can describe the increase of this proportion over time. So the term urbanization can represent the level of urban relative to overall population, or it can represent the rate at which the urban proportion is increasing. urban heat island has become a growing concern and is increasing over the years. The urban heat island is formed when industrial and urban areas are developed and heat becomes more abundant. In rural areas, a large part of the incoming solar energy is used to evaporate water from vegetation and soil. In cities, where less vegetation and exposed soil exists, the majority of the sun’s energy is absorbed by urban structures and asphalt. Hence, during warm daylight hours, less evaporative cooling in cities allows surface temperatures to rise higher than in rural areas. Additional city heat is given off by vehicles and factories, as well as by industrial and domestic heating and cooling units. This effect causes the city to become 2 to 10o F (1 to 6o C) warmer than surrounding landscapes. Impacts also include reducing soil moisture and intensification of carbon dioxide emissions. Urban poverty: Sprawling slums are now so commonly associated with cities like Nairobi that they have become unremarkable. Similarly, footage on television of children playing in open sewers, or of women picking their way through huge rubbish dumps is no longer shocking. Instead these images signify a phenomenon that is rapidly becoming one of developing countries’ most complex challenges – Urban Poverty. World population is increasing rapidly with three-quarters of the increase occurring in developing countries. Population growth within cities, and families moving from rural homes in search of a life offering opportunity and hope, means cities in the developing world grew by 2. 67% per year in 2000-2005, compared to 1. 21% for the world as a whole. Unfortunately, infrastructure and basic service development have not increased at the same rate and in countries where sanitation, roads, water, and other services were already under-developed, towns and cities are struggling to accommodate the unprecedented upsurge in urban populations. The result is hundreds of millions of people living in overcrowded, neglected urban slums that pose serious risks to their lives. Cause and effect Slums symbolise urban poverty. For the families living in them, they create hazardous and unsafe conditions that compound the poverty which forced them to set up home there in the first place. * With lack of freely available safe clean water in the cities, families living in slums have often no choice but to buy it at high cost from vendors. With inadequate sanitation, waste disposal or drainage facilities, open sewers are created by rubbish and human defecation * alongside walkways between the densely packed shelters – disease thrives and people, especially children become ill. * In these conditions simply being ill can have severe implications. It can mean loss of livelihood, leaving families struggling to buy food or water let alone medicines. * With weak ownership rights to the land, residents are vulnerable and cannot build saf e, sturdy homes, so they become easy victims of weather conditions fire and crime. With no voice to change policy decisions or demand essential services, slum dwellers face an enormous challenge in such uncertain and unfair circumstances. * In this environment, with no land, traditional coping mechanisms like relying on extended family or small-holder farming falter. The result is that people’s homes and neighbourhoods become both a cause and an effect of poverty and something that can be extremely difficult to break out of. Recognition of this growing problem culminated in 2000 when the world’s richest governments pledged through the Millennium Development Goals to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. Urban poverty facts * Cities in the developing world will absorb 95% of the worlds expected population growth between 2000 and 2030. * According to recent estimates there are now over 900 million who people can be classified as slum dwellers. * Based on 2001 estimates, 43% of the urban population in the developing world lives in slums. In the least developed countries, this percentage rises to more than 78%. * If present trends continue, 1. 5 billion people out of 3. 3 billion urban residents will live in sums by the year 2020. Unemployment The rate of unemployment in some urban areas is 17. 5%. The Government does devote a considerable part of its budget to education, and the literacy rate above the age of 15 is 85%, however, there is little foreign investment into the economy due to high crime rates, congested road system, and the shortage of a skilled labor. Within the labor force, where the total is 1,062,100, 41% is involved in services, 22. 5% is involved in agriculture and 19% is involved in industry. Most of the unemployed population within Country can be found in the squatter settlements and ghettos of the inner city. Within these communities, organizations such as Non Governmental organization, are involved in empowerment projects, which have goals of community upliftment. An individual may be classified as living in poverty if he or she earns less than J$38,409. 15 per year. Of the total percentage of people living in poverty, 50. 7% are male and 49. 3% are females. This almost fifty-fifty cut has been the result of women at larger number completing higher levels of education whereas in most counties the females are more disadvantaged than the males. Only 47% of the total percentage of people living below the poverty line is a part of the labor force (ages 15 – 64). There is a high level of inequality in where the wealthiest 20% of the population controls 46% of the national consumption, while the poorest 20% controlled only 5. 3% of the national consumption. Thus the wealthiest 10% consumed more that 12. 5 times of the poorest 10%. Criminal activity With inequalities such as this, it is not too hard to believe that Kingston’s reputation as a place of violence ranks third in the world. Gang violence and shootings occur regularly in inner-city areas of Kingston. Some inner-city neighborhoods are occasionally subject to curfews and police searches. Impromptu street protests sometimes occur, during which demonstrators often construct roadblocks or otherwise block the streets. The Honorable Percival Patterson Prime minist of Jamaica 1992-PresentThe Prime Minister of the Island, The Honorable Percival Patterson, aimed to curb violence with several crime fighting plans. One of these plans includes a â€Å"Crime Stop† operation where the communication with the public and the police is increased. This program rewards persons who inform the police on criminal activity that leads to an arrest. The need to decrease the number of guns smuggled and circulated into the country is also another angle that the authorities seek to deal with the issues of criminal activity in Jamaica. The heightened security with smuggling of weapons from the USA is one way that the Government of Jamaica seeks to curb the influx of weapons, in return for increased efforts to help with drug trafficking in the states. These are a few of the ways that the Ministry of security seeks to end the violence in the countries capital. Congestion Overcrowding is one of the other problems that the urban center faces. With the importation of a high level of Japanese used cars (deportees) that are sold for relatively cheap, the number of cars on the roads greatly contribute to the damage of roadways, and the congestion within the city. The improvement of public transportation is one means of decreasing the high volumes of traffic on the roads. Since a major natural disaster by means of hurricane Gilbert in 1988, Kingston has had its share of flooding and such, but nothing related to the massive earthquakes of the early 1900s. The Urban Poor and Mobility Stress in Nigerian Cities indication of the extent of urban mobility problems in. Nigerian cities can be gleaned from the level or state of transport infrastructure, the deplorable AN ANALYSIS OF FOOD SECURITY SITUATION AMONG NIGERIAN URBAN Key words: Food security, urban households, and Lagos state, Nigeria. ontributing to food problems in Nigeria varies from URBAN POVERTY IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF AGEGE AREA OF LAGOS in an urban area (Ibadan) of Nigeria and to present concrete solution to food and poverty problems in large urban areas. The survey covered three areas, Urban housing affordability and housing policy dilemmas in Nigeria housing affordability problems in Nigeria with about 3 out of every 5 urban households experiencing such difficulties. There are also significant housing IMROVING URBAN LAND USE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA: THE Despite the existence of these laws and policies, urban land use management problems still persist in Nigeria. Consequently, there is need for a better Intra-urban travel stress in a developing country – Nigeria have examined various aspects of the urban transport problems, hitherto there is no study in the developing country and in Nigeria in particular that WATER DEMAND MANAGEMENT, PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF IMPLEMENTATIONS Water supply in Nigeria is facing serious challenges driven by rapid population growth, rbanization, budgetary constraints, corruption, and imperatives of Globalization, Urbanization and Municipal Solid Waste Management globalization and situating Africa in the global scene, the urbanization process is Solid Waste Management in Nigeria: Problems and Issues. The arguments against very large cities in Nigeria: A non-western Sada, P. O. : Urbanization Trends an d Problems of Urbanization. Planning for Rural Development in Nigeria: A spatial approach Nigerias Major Urban Centres, Paper Presented for Conference of to tackle the complex nature of rural development problems in Nigeria in an inte- Water Supply Sanitation in Nigeria A. Urban Water Supply Sanitation. †¢. The Large Urban Utility Problem sewerage in urban Nigeria. Regarding solid waste, while there is some level of Thematic Committee 6 8 June 2001 12. Sustainable Urban governance of these complex systems of urbanization that Nigeria has perhaps made problems of poverty and overwhelming demand on urban services. ISSUES IN AND FUTURE OF URBAN TRANSPORTATION AND TRAFFIC M ANAGEM Contemporary issues in Nigerias Urban Transportation. 3. The demand for and management of urban-transport. 4. Issues and Problems SUSTAINABLE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA – THE FINANCIAL AND One major serious aspect of urban problem with respect to housing is the poor state Table 1: Distribution of Households by Water Supply in Nigeria Urban Lesson One—Urbanization Lagos, Nigeria. 8. 7. 23. Istanbul, Turkey. 9. 4. 24. Moscow, Russian. Federation Review urban problems solutions from the previous lesson. Activities: